Notable Quotables - 11/06/1995

Will the Lies Ever Stop?

"And on a busy Saturday
this morning, Jack, we're going to get to the very latest on
Republicans' plan to slash the Medicare budget."- Today
co-host Giselle Fernandez to co-host Jack Ford, October 14.

"Republicans are
predicting victory today when their plan to overhaul Medicare
is put to a vote in the House. Last night, Democrats were
still attacking the bill, which slashes $270 billion in
Medicare spending."- CBS This Morning news anchor Jane
Robelot, October 19.

"Are the Republicans most
vulnerable here because they want to make these big cuts in
Medicare and also give a tax cut, including tax cuts to those
people making $100,000 or more?"- Tom Brokaw to Tim
Russert, October 19 NBC Nightly News.

"The House and Senate
begin debate today on the Republican plan to balance the
budget. It would slash spending by a quarter-trillion dollars,
which Democrats claim would fund a tax cut for the rich."- CBS This Morning news anchor Jane Robelot, October 25.

"If enacted it would
largely get the federal government out of the business of
helping the poor....It would mean a much smaller government.
It would probably mean a balanced budget. But I think the
critics are also right that in some important ways it would
mean a less humane government."- Wall Street Journal
Washington Bureau Chief Alan Murray, October 26 NBC News at
Sunrise.

"Republicans vowed to
press for huge cuts in government spending and $245 billion in
tax cuts. President Clinton vowed to veto it as too radical
and too extreme."- Dan Rather, October 25 CBS Evening News.

"President Clinton has
declared the GOP budget proposals too extreme and threatened a
veto unless Republicans agree to scale back their $245 billion
tax cut and the massive cuts in health care for the elderly
and poor, welfare programs, student loans, and the Earned
Income Tax Credit for the working poor...For weeks, Democrats
have hammered Republicans for seeking large cuts in Medicare
and other social programs to help offset the cost of their tax
cut for middle- and upper-income Americans."-
Washington Post reporters John E. Yang and Eric Pianin,
October 27 front page story.

Reality Check:
"An illuminating way to look at this budget is to take
what the government actually spent and raised over the past
seven years and compare it to what Republicans propose to
spend and raise over the next seven years. The results:
Spending will increase by $2.6 trillion. Revenues will
increase by $3.3 trillion....Spending will rise by 27 percent
and tax revenues by 41 percent....Consider Medicare.
Politicians talk about $271 billion in cuts, but actually,
under the GOP plan, spending in 2002 will be $86 billion
higher than in 1995, an increase of more than 6 percent
annually."- Washington Post columnist James K. Glassman, October 17.

Weren't Southern
Segregationists All Democrats?

"Mr. Clinton has sought
to keep blacks involved by standing up for at least some
affirmative action programs, which is highly unpopular with
many white voters. But he must also respond, to some degree,
to the national passion for shrinking government, which will
inevitably involve reductions in federal programs that poor
blacks regard as lifelines, like Medicaid and urban subsidies.
Mr. Clinton can only hope that his party is not punished
further for its longstanding commitment to (and identification
with) the blacks of America."- New York Times
Washington Bureau Chief R.W. Apple, October 17 "news
analysis."

"They were there to
remind Americans that even in a time of conservatism and
backlash, the business of racism and inequality will not be
ignored."- Time's Richard Lacayo on the Million Man
March, Oct. 30.

I Won't Condemn Louis
Farrakhan, But Bob Dole Is Sickening

"I think he [Farrakhan]
has begun to rehabilitate himself. I don't know that it will
ever be complete. I think he said so many vile things. I don't
think we can ever erase that. But if somebody is going to do
something decent and encourage the kind of expression of
solidarity we saw today, I'm not going to condemn it. I think
it was a positive march."- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift,
CBS's Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, Oct. 17.

"He's [Dole's] a raging
moderate in his heart. But the things he's doing now to pander
to the right wing of the party are sickening."- Clift,
minutes later.

Is There Any Doubt?

"Two weeks after his
acquittal, we'll see how O.J. Simpson is still being treated
as if he were guilty."- Bryant Gumbel, October 16 Today.

Reporters Aren't Liberal,
They're Just Compassionate

Cokie Roberts: "I don't
think the coverage of Gingrich and the GOP Congress has been
liberally biased..."Lisa Myers: "I also think there
is a bias in favor of spending money, but I don't think it's
liberal vs. conservative, but a bias in favor of government
programs and spending money to try to solve problems. And it's
compassionate to spend money, even if there is not money there
to spend and even if you're heaping debt on the next
generation."- The ABC and NBC reporter on CNBC's Meet
the Media, Oct. 23.

From the Conservatives You've
Ignored

"This is a pretty big
complicated idea and you're looking at a real bedrock program
[Medicare] here. How come we haven't heard about this before?
Where did this Medical Savings Account come from?"- Los
Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus, October
20 Washington Week in Review.

Helping Clinton's
Triangulation

"How do you view the
GOP's courtship of the extreme and religious right?"-
Bryant Gumbel to former Democratic Senator Gary Hart, October
17 Today.

"There's a hollowness to
the U.S. economy and - as the President explained aboard Air
Force One - to the American spirit in this post-Cold War era.
Doubt and fear leave people vulnerable to the seductive voice
of extremists, he said, drawing votes from centrists like
himself."- Boston Globe reporter John Aloysius Farrell,
September 22.

Bill the Terrific and the
Fabulous Democrats

"It's nice, of course, if
we have a President we like. But there's more to governing
than likability. We learned that from the likable Ronald
Reagan, who charmed us with stories as he amassed huge
deficits and spent billions on goofy defense plans. No, the
record is more important. And Bill Clinton's record is just
short of terrific."- Former NBC News President Michael
Gartner in his USA Today column, October 17.

"With eight retiring
Senators, Sam Nunn being the latest, I think there's a lot of
concern that this party is looking very hard to find its voice
and find a clear vision for the fabulous record of things that
it's done for this country, and hopefully that will come up in
your next segment with Gary Hart."- U.S. News Director
of Editorial Administration (and 1984 Hart press secretary)
Kathryn Bushkin, C-SPAN's Sunday Journal, Oct. 15.

Saw Off That Tongue

Tim Russert: "You're
encouraging the President today in saying `Let the Democrats
in Congress negotiate.' Are you not concerned that if you cut
a deal with Republicans, President Clinton will saw your limb
off?"Sen. Bob Kerrey: "That's a terrible metaphor,
since someone's already sawed one of them off."-
Exchange from the October 29 Meet the Press. (Kerrey lost a
leg in the Vietnam War).

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